


Stranger Things 4

by havwkins



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, Fluff, High School, Internalized Homophobia, Multi, a year after season 3, give will and eleven a damn break, gonna be as canon as possible, my take on season 4, robin is a lesbian stop erasing that to get your steve/robin endgame, the russians are back, we'll see, who is "the american", will and robin are my gay children, will is having an identity crisis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-06-25 14:25:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19747555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havwkins/pseuds/havwkins
Summary: August 1986. The Party is about to start their sophomore year at Hawkins High, while 2 hours away Will and Eleven are about to start theirs at Clarksville High. Everything seems normal for once, until a strange boy and a mysterious new threat emerge...Aka my version of Stranger Things 4





	1. Author's Note

Author's Note

hi hi, the last few days have been full of emotional breakdowns and theories about next season, so i decided to write a fic that is hopefully as accurate as next season will be. a lot of unanswered fan questions will be answered in this, hopefully easing the burning desire to know the answers while we wait painfully for the next season. i hope you all like it!! comments and feedback is greatly appreciated and helpful!! the first chapter will probably be up tomorrow! 


	2. Chapter 1: Old Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Each chapter will focus on a few characters depending on the narrative. This is more of an intro chapter, later chapters will have wayyy more content. The first chapter focuses on Eleven and Will adapting to their new life.

_**August 1986** _

**Eleven**

The sun peeks through the window of the upstairs bedroom of the Byer's cozy Clarksville home. It's small, but Will and Eleven aren't ones to complain. Deep down they both know that there isn't enough time in life for arguments and complaints, and El thanks her lucky stars everyday that she is safe, that she is protected, that she is alive.

Her eyes slowly open as her room fills with light, and for just a split second, she forgets all that she's lost. That split second is what El looks forward to the most, a second after she wakes up, still hazy and half asleep. A split second where she'll call Max and ask to go to the mall, a second where she can fling the door open with just a flick of her wrist, a second where she can't wait to go downstairs and have breakfast with Hopper. But then that second ends, and reality kicks in. She can't hang out with Max because Max is on the other side of Indiana, she can't use her powers because she knows they won't come back, and she can't have breakfast with Hopper, because he's gone. That's the worst part, when the memories come flooding back. How Joyce came back from the Russian facility alone, and held onto Will like nothing else mattered. And when she looked into El's eyes, El just _knew_. And the pain she felt in that moment was stronger than anything she had ever felt before. All of her encounters with the Upside Down and the Mind Flayer were nothing compared to this.

El blinks a few times and rubs her eyes. She rolls over to look at the clock which reads seven-one-nine. There's only a few more days until school starts and she's dreading it. Joyce decided that since El no longer has powers, then she's no longer a threat and no one will try to harm her, so she enrolled her in school. Freshman year was hell for her, having to lie to the teachers and tell them that she had a head injury that made it difficult for her to learn as fast as the rest of the students. She hated having to make new friends, she doesn't trust anyone. She misses the Party, she misses Mike. 

She rolls over to the clock again and it now reads seven-two-five. Mike used to call her every morning at seven-one-five for the first few months after she moved. But then Mike was busy with school and El was busy was her own hobbies which in turn made those morning calls less and less frequent. Every morning she still clutches her radio hoping that she'll hear "El! El are you there?". But today isn't one of those days. She pulls herself out of bed and makes her way to the bathroom. She reaches for the doorknob but realizes that it's locked.

"WILLLLLLLLLL GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM!!" She all but yells. It's little things like this that make her miss Hop. He always made sure to use the bathroom after she was done, he was courteous like that. But now it's always Will spending god knows how long and doing god knows what in there. She tries not to think too hard about what her brother gets up to in the bathroom...gross. 

"WILL I UNDERSTAND THAT YOUR HAIR IS IMPORTANT BUT I NEED TO USE THE BATHROOM!". The door opens, finally. Will is standing half naked with a towel wrapped around his waist and wet hair that's dripping all over the floor, and looking very annoyed. She immediately covers her eyes and makes her way into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. Will and El share this bathroom, but based on how 90% of the things in there are Will's, El wonders if Joyce uses the word "share" too loosely. "Jeez does he really need all this stuff?" She mumbles to herself while putting away his unnecessary amount of hair products and lotion. But El would never tell Will that to his face, again, she never complains. She has no need to, she has a family now.

Will is the closest thing to a brother she'll ever get, and although they never say it, they love each other, some things don't need to be said out loud. 

**Will**

Will Byers swore to himself that the minute he moved to Clarksville he would become a new person. That he would shed the skin of the old Will Byers and a new, and better Will Byers would mold in his place. He wasn't going to be zombie boy anymore, he wasn't going to be cleric anymore, he wasn't going to be a freak anymore. So the first day he moved into his new home, he went straight to the town barber and cut his hair. The barber cut it way too short, Will thought he looked like more of a doofus than he did before, but the sides grew out just in time for the new school year. He made a pact with himself, he was not going to take shit from anyone ever again. He quit drawing dragons and fairytale creatures, and started drawing movie characters or singers. He started working out, his baby fat had turned into pure muscle, and by the time football season came around, he had made varsity. He was popular, the new boy in town. He hung out with the football guys and talked about girls and even made student council. Will always knew he was a good actor, so it was easy to pretend to be the new Will Byers. But that's the thing, if you spend so much time pretending to be someone else, you become that person. Will didn't exactly love the new Will Byers, but the new Will Byers never got bullied, not even once.

Whenever El or his mom would bring up the Party he would simply nod and grumble a few words but nothing more. He hadn't talked to any of them since they left for Clarksville. They called him nonstop for a while, but they eventually gave up. Some nights El would spend hours talking to Mike or Max or Dustin or Lucas, and Will would crawl out of bed and stand by her door, listening to the voices of his friends. No, his old friends. El and Joyce just assumed that Will had moved on, that he didn't care about being friends with them anymore, which isn't a surprise to Will because he makes it very clear that's what he wants, but in reality, Will never stopped caring. 

He misses Max, how she would always get into dramatic fights with Lucas and then he would win her back hours later. He misses how fiery and confident she is, and how she would always push him out of his comfort zone. He misses Dustin, how he would sneak into Will's room while he was sleeping and do his Chewbacca growl right in his ear to wake him up. He misses how hilarious and kind he is, and how he would always make him laugh. He misses Lucas, how he would always start dancing or singing whenever anything remotely good happened, which would make the rest of the Party sing and dance along with him. He misses how brave and loyal he is, how he always volunteered to make Will feel better. And... He misses Mike. The same Mike who pushed him away after he started dating El, the same Mike who told him to grow up, the same Mike who looked him in the eye and said "It's not my fault you don't like girls." God Will still remembers the look on his face, the look of disgust and shame. 

But Will knows that he has to stop thinking about them, it's the one thing standing between him and completely moving on. "So whatever, fuck Mike Wheeler and fuck the rest of them, if only they could see me now," Will thinks. What _if_ they could see him now. What would they think of him. They'd probably see him for what he really is, a fraud, a bully. They wouldn't even recognize him. He's as tall as Mike now, maybe even taller, and built. Sometimes Will looks in the mirror and sees someone that he would have run away from in middle school, someone who he would've cowered at the mere mention of his name, someone that would have pushed him up against a locker and called him a faggot. Will became what he feared the most, but it was better this way. No one messed with the new Will Byers, they didn't dare to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will be about the party and then the plot will begin


	3. Chapter 2: New Year, New Me, Right?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductory chapters part 2, giving the rest of the backstory on the gap between Season 3 and Season 4. Or in other words, everyone misses El and Will

_**August 1986** _

**Mike**

Mike Wheeler is in a hurry. Sophomore orientation starts in 20 minutes and he promised the Party he would get there early so they can sneak into the AV club room. “Shit shit… MOM, WHERE ARE MY SHOES??” He screams down the stairs to his mom. “SWEETIE I DON’T KNOW THEY’RE  _ YOUR  _ SHOES, YOU’RE 15 IF YOU CAN’T KEEP TRACK OF YOUR SHOES HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TRUST YOU WITH ANYTHING?” He heard his mom yell back to him from the kitchen. He lifts up all the couch cushions and looks underneath all the tables. He lets out a sigh and runs to the kitchen to grab his stuff. 

“Mike you are not leaving this house wearing only socks”, his mom warns him. But Mike didn’t hear her because he was already out the door and hopping onto his bike. “This is fucking brutal”, he thought to himself as his feet throbbed from his vigorous peddling, “Now I’m not just going to be Hawkins’ resident dork but also Hawkins’ resident dork who didn’t wear shoes to orientation”. He made it to the school just in time and ran to the gym to find his friends. He threw the door open to find the entire grade sitting on the bleachers, staring at him. The principal, who had obviously stopped speaking into the microphone when Mike made his grand entrance, gestures for him to sit down. 

Mike has always hated being the center of attention and has made it his life’s work to avoid situations like these. He spots the Party sitting in the front row looking at him with pure confusion. The walk of shame to the bleachers was agonizingly long. It reminded Mike when he, Dustin, Lucas, and El barged into the gym during Will’s (fake) vigil. That all seems like lifetimes ago. 

He takes a seat next to Lucas who looks at his shoeless feet and then makes a “What the hell?” gesture with his hands. Mike shakes his head and mouths an “I’m sorry” to the Party and then turns to face the principal. He can’t believe he’s about to be a  _ sophomore  _ in high school. It doesn’t feel real. After all he and his friends have gone through it’s a shock that they even made it this far. But the other kids didn’t know that they had saved the world 3 times, they didn’t care that they had come in contact with inter dimensional monsters, to everyone else, they were outcasts. Other than the usual teasing and AV club meetings, freshman year was different, not just in the sense that he was starting high school, but the energy and dynamic around him felt different. 

Mike would be lying if he said he went a day without thinking about El, Will, and Joyce. He and the Party drove up to Clarksville to spend Christmas with them. Even in that short time apart from El, she somehow managed to get more beautiful. Sure, Mike wasn’t a sap in front of his friends, but El could turn him into straight goo. Will didn’t spend Christmas with them, El told them that he was at a friend’s house. Mike was dumbfounded when he found out that Will had made varsity football and was…  _ popular _ . He couldn’t imagine tiny Will Byers parading around with the jocks. But Mike didn’t care, they all made their efforts to talk to Will but he obviously wanted nothing to do with them. It hurt. Then the hurt turned to anger, and then to longing. Will was Mike’s longest friend, he would have fought 100 demogorgons if it meant Will would be safe. Mike tries to think about what happened that made Will become so cold. He thinks that it was because he spent so much time with El instead of playing D&D, but Will was crying the day he left. It keeps Mike up at night wondering what went wrong. 

By the time Mike stops thinking about El and Will, orientation is over and everyone is dismissed. Dustin goes up to Mike and says, “Dude what happened to you? We  _ thought  _ we all agreed to meet in the AV room? And where are your shoes??”. Mike is honestly a little drained from spending the second orientation in a row without his girlfriend and his best friend, so he forces out a quick explanation and apology. “Well anyways you guys want to stop by the movie store and see Steve and Robin before watching a movie at my place?” Dustin aks hopefully. “Yeah sure I can go,” Max says. Lucas quickly replies, “Uh sorry Dustin… I have to uh… help my mom… make dinner.” Mike knows he’s lying, Lucas can’t cook for shit, and Max seems suspicious too. “Um alright,” Dustin says, “Mike? You?”. Mike snaps out of his internal interrogation of Lucas’s excuse, and stutters, “Y-Yeah man let’s go.” They all start walking towards the exit before Mike feels a sharp push against his shoulder. He looks up to see Troy, aka the biggest asshole of Hawkins High, standing in front of him. “Watch where you’re going frog face,” He snorts before walking with his posse of dickwads out the door. “Ignore them Mike,” Max says reassuringly. Mike grabs at his shoulder, “Yeah, I always do.”

**Lucas**

Lucas has a dilemma. And that dilemma is the one thing on his mind as he plops down on his bed after orientation. He feels bad for lying to his friends, and he knows none of them bought the excuse he made up on the spot. But it’s not his fault that this is happening to him. It isn’t a bad dilemma, he just doesn’t know how to handle it. And that dilemma is that he’s in love with Max, and it’s ruining his life. He’s so nervous that it’ll accidentally slip out that he avoids hanging around Max for long periods of time because he doesn’t know how long he can hold it in. He wants to talk to someone but he’s running out of options. He can’t talk to Dustin because he’d tease the shit out of him. He can’t talk to Mike because he’d probably start thinking about El and end up not helping him. He definitely can’t tell Erica. That’s not even a possibility. He knows exactly who’d he go to at a time like this, but that person lives 2 hours away and doesn’t pick up his calls. 

He doesn’t know how to handle it, and he thinks that if he tells Max it’ll scare her off. She’s lost a lot this past year and he doesn’t want to overwhelm her or make her think she has to say it back, even though he really hopes she does. He knows it’s not the Mike and El type of movie magic romantic shit love, but it’s there and it’s real and it’s eating him alive. Worst of all they’re starting sophomore year, and sophomore years is notorious for being the time that couples start doing  _ stuff  _ with each other. How the hell is Lucas going to be able to do  _ stuff  _ with Max if she doesn’t love him back?? Or what if she doesn’t want to do  _ stuff  _ with him because he hasn’t said ‘I love you yet’?? Lucas lets out a groan and smashes his face into the pillow. 

He could always talk to Steve… no he can’t because Max is hanging out with Steve right now and he can’t have that conversation with her in the room. “I could just go tomorrow?” He thinks, but tomorrow is the first day of school and he’s not going to have time to talk to Steve let alone tell Max how he feels. At least one thing’s for sure, Lucas Sinclair is head over heels for Max Mayfield. 

**Steve**

Summer is getting old. When you’re in school, summer is the only thing you’re looking forward to, but when you’re a high school graduate with no future it becomes a long and repetitive cycle of endless torture, and Steve is sick of it. He worked at the movie store with Robin for a few months until they reopened the mall. He got his job back at Scoops Ahoy but Robin decided to stay at the movie store. And Steve knew exactly why, Tammy Thompson comes into that store every week to rent a new movie.

Steve is jealous, not of Tammy, but that Robin is hopeful that things will work out out even if Tammy doesn’t know it yet, meanwhile Steve hasn’t even gotten past talking to a girl for more than 30 seconds over the last year, and he’s beginning to lose all hope. After his shift at Scoops Ahoy, he drives over to the movie store to spend time with Robin until she’s done with work, and then they’ll either hang out with Dustin and the Party, or Robin will try to be his wingman at the mall. He honestly feels like there’s nothing in store for him anymore, he used to think about the bright future he had in front of him, now all he can think about is how in the hell he hasn’t had a girlfriend in almost 3 years, his best friends consist of a lesbian and group of children, and he works at an ice cream shop  _ in a mall _ . In high school he was the king of Hawkins, all the girls wanted him and the guys wanted to be him. Now no girls want him and he wants to be all those guys who made it to college and are probably studying… er uh physicsology? Steve knows that’s not right but he would know these things if he had gone to college. 

It’s a typical day, he just finished his shift and is on his way to see Robin. He thinks to himself how lucky he is to have her as a friend, she’s cool and smart and funny and he definitely missed out on knowing her in school. He opens the door to the tiny shop and Robin’s head lifts off the table when she hears the bell ring from the door being opened. She smiles and drapes her hand above her head dramatically and says “Is that my knight in shining armor coming to save me from this treacherous dungeon?” Steve laughs and does a little curtsey which Robin cracks up at, “M’lady” he says with a tip of his sailor hat. He sits down next to her and they have their daily conversation about how much working  _ sucks _ . Robin suddenly becomes animated when she remembers how Tammy came in today and complimented her scrunchie. “Can you believe she said that? She said it was ‘very Heathers’ and she liked it!!” Robin says excitedly. Steve smiles, he always does, but he knows that Tammy isn’t gay. And he knows that because well… he slept with her back in high school. But Robin doesn’t know that, and Steve thinks she’s better off not knowing, but a part of him wants to tell her before she gets hurt. 

Before Robin can finish her story the door opens again, and in walk Dustin, Mike, and Max. “Heyyyyy look who it is”, Steve says while walking over to Dustin to do their special handshake. “Where’s Lucas?” Robin asks. Max doesn’t hesitate, “Oh he made up some bullshit lie about helping his mom with dinner.” “Oh, weird” Robin says. Dustin chimes in, “He probably went home to jerk off to that picture of Max in the bikini from the beach this summer.” Max slaps his arm and scolds him for being gross. Steve chuckles, man he really doesn’t know where the time went, he has trouble coming to terms with the fact that these kids are growing up. They’re sophomores, and in 2 years, they’ll leave him, and the thought of that scares him more than it should. 

**Nancy**

Nancy Wheeler is walking on sunshine. She couldn’t be happier. Jonathan decided to come back home and they moved in together in the Byer’s old house, her parents seem to be getting along, and she just got promoted at her new job at a newspaper downtown. It’s nothing like that Hawkins Post bullshit, this is the real deal, and she’s actually taken seriously by her coworkers for being the ambitious journalist she is, and she’s never had to get coffee for anyone, not once. As she opens the door to her home, wow, just saying the word  _ home _ feels unreal, she notices Jonathan sitting on the couch looking at a piece of paper. He sees her and rises to give her a kiss. “How was work today?” He asks, and it warms her heart to know he genuinely cares about her answer. “It was great, we’re covering a story about the AIDS epidemic, we’ve gotten a lot of sources and are making great progress.” She says triumphantly. He smiles and puts his hand on her cheek, “You’re going to take the world by storm Nancy Wheeler, they aren’t ready.” She grins so hard her face hurts.

“What are you reading?” She asks curiously (hey, she’s a journalist she can’t help but ask). “Oh um, I’m not reading anything, I’m just looking at this drawing that Will drew a few years ago.” Nancy picks up the drawing. It’s a drawing of Jonathan and Will wearing The Clash t-shirts with the caption “Happy Birthday Jonny, I love you, from Will”. Nancy’s heart aches a little bit. She looks up at Jonathan, “You miss him don’t you.” He looks down and smiles softly, “Yeah, I really do.” Nancy knows how hard it was to say goodbye to his mom and Will in order to move back to Hawkins, but Jonathan had told her that his home is wherever she is. “You should call Will today, he’s starting school tomorrow right?” Jonathan shakes his head, “He’s probably busy, he’s got a lot on his plate lately, you know with being Vice President and football-“ Nancy cuts him off, “He’s your brother Jonathan, he’ll always make time for you.” She gives him a quick kiss and walks to their bedroom. She hears him walking towards the phone and then hears it ringing. It rings for almost 40 seconds before the line goes dead. She swallows hard, Will hasn’t talked to Jonathan for a  _ while _ and she knows how worried Jonathan is about Will’s new sense of self. Jonathan walks into their room and Nancy tries to perk up. “Did he answer?” She asks, not trying to expose herself for eavesdropping. “Uh yeah he did, thanks for getting me to call him Nance” he says without meeting her eyes before leaving the room. Nancy sighs, she knows Jonathan doesn’t want to give her the news that Will ignored his call, but she can’t stop thinking about how Jonathan needs his brother back, desperately. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter will be the first day of school and the start of the plot!! hopefully things become a bit more realistic and make more sense! please leave feedback it helps a fuck ton :)


	4. update

the next chapter is really long and is taking me a while to write so my goal is to finish it today and post it either tonight or tomorrow, either way this is my first fic and all of the comments are making me soft ok that's all bye bye


	5. i’m big dumb

me writing an entire 2 chapters with over 20k words and then forgetting to save them? more likely than you think! 

basically i’m a fucking dumbass boo boo the fool and deleted 2 drafts by mistake. its gonna take me some time to rewrite them but I PROMISE I WILL UPDATE THIS FIC IF ITS THE LAST THING I DO.


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